Move Over Phonics: Music Training and Reading
September 28, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Music may be more effective than phonics in enhancing verbal communication and literacy skills, a new study from Northwestern University suggests—I like the sound of that. My son Charlie is learning phonics as one part of his learning-to-read curriculum: It is slow going, especially as Charlie, who has apraxia, does not always identify some of the alphabet letters correctly (B and D are continually confused, owing to their similarities of sound and form). It is clearer and clearer to me everyday that music is a powerful way to teach Charlie, and for him to communicate; if there is some way to use music to help him with his reading, so much the better.
The September 27th Science Daily notes this about audiovisual processing in musicians:
Musicians use all of their senses to practice and perform a musical piece. They watch other musicians, read lips, and feel, hear and perform music, thus, engaging multi-sensory skills. As it turns out, the brain’s alteration from the multi-sensory process of music training enhances the same communication skills needed for speaking and reading, the study concludes.
…….
The nervous system’s multi-sensory processing begins in the brainstem, an evolutionarily ancient part of the brain previously thought to be relatively unmalleable.“Musicians have a specialized neural system for processing sight and sound in the brainstem, the neural gateway to the brain,” said Northwestern doctoral student Gabriella Musacchia, lead author of the study.
The study was published in the September 24th Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Because the brainstem provides a pathway for both music and speech, researchers suggest that their findings could have applications for helping students with literacy. I just like the idea that instruction in music is, it is suggested, essential—-perhaps it is no wonder that Charlie is finding it easier to read music than words. He certainly already likes to use the sung word to good effect, and I like to listen.
Photo courtesy of j-fin via Flickr.
I was completely impervious to music for most of my life, and taught myself to read just based on the literary and phonetic similarities. My mother is less musical than my father, but she probably has amongst the highest commands of the English language of anyone I’ve met. So, I’m not convinced that it’s essential, per se, but I can see that it’s probably a great help.
Also, it might be interested to supplement this by comparing currently musicians to non-musicians and comparing the command of language, to see the typical depth of difference.
What was the actual procedure for the study?
Cliff
From Science Daily:
I’ll also note that one reason I was long ago drawn to Latin and ancient Greek is that these (being “dead” languages”) are languages that one primarily reads rather than speaking and writing. Years ago, I much appreciated not having to talk out loud, certainly not in a foreign language.
Interesting.
Good for your son, by the by, if that works for him. I know I was immune to music for most of my life (because it takes way too much practice to not hear it as individual bits and pieces thrown together that annoy me), so he’ll have a good part of his childhood that I did manage to miss. It was only when I was 13 or so (ish?) that I began to appreciate any kind of music, when my Dad took me out to the Reno Philharmonic and then out to dinner. I went originally for the dinner, but I learned to like the music, too, quickly.
I took Latin for three years, and was fairly terrible at it, though I took it in stride. I couldn’t really associate the words to ideas without lots of help, though I was good at manipulating the grammar (and thus made it through, somehow). Right now I’m trying Chinese for my language credit, which has to be bordering on just nuts or way too optimistic, but I’m having fun even if I’m not quite as able (understatement) as my classmates.
Cliff
Fascinating! I’m going to look for more on this study. The musician in me (now classroom teacher) wants to know more.
Music is one of Ely’s biggest motivators, according to her teacher and her speech pathologist. I truly believe that most of her current language abilities (which are quite limited, but nothing like they were three years ago) are attributed to music. We do a lot of singing around the house to teach her new words. Simply being spoken to is not nearly as effective as singing something to her.
And, as I have stated before, if you can present it to her in operatic or choral form, all the better.
I would love to have her start piano lessons soon…taking piano from age six to age eighteen was, I think, what gave me a head-start typing (and, thus, computing). My dad, who played piano by ear, could type 120 wpm.
Had I not played piano for 13 years (10 of those competitively), I am certain that my learning disability (dyscalculia) would affect me far worse in daily life. I had mostly classical training with years of music theory and analysis, and that focus on patterns and repetition gave my ways to work around the lack of basic arithmetic skills. Also, the focus on pattern recognition and analysis gave me a serious edge in learning foreign languages (some Latin, Russian and Welsh, and lots of French and Spanish), as well as an edge in computer systems and interface design. Music saved my butt in lots of ways
Plus, if you’ve ever read about Gardner’s 7 Intelligences (http://wilderdom.com/personality/L2-4GardenerMultipleIntelligences.html), the sheer physicality of moving my hands and feet to the meter of the music and figuring out where my hands and feet needed to be at any point in time further helped me learn. I’m a visual and physical learner and could learn pieces well through muscle memory, but can’t play by ear to save my life! Hubby has a great ear, played a few instruments and sings well, so music is a fact of life around here.
We would like to start Bobby on piano lessons soon, but he has to stop stimming on opening and closing the keyboard lid first…smashing fingers in a wooden lid would be a serious disincentive to practice!